Giving into idiot factor of being a guy

My wife thinks I’m an idiot, which would bother me if she
weren’t demonstrably correct.
My wife thinks I’m an idiot, which would bother me if she weren’t demonstrably correct. In fact, the description shades toward charitable, because in unvarnished truth I’m a moron trying to upgrade to idiot, with sporadic success.

This is primarily attributable to two unalterable factors: first, I’m a guy, and second, I’m me. In my guy guise I have all the uncountable faults and shortcomings of guys everywhere. I hate like the plague to ask for directions and would, as I once did, drive all the way across Los Angeles at 2 a.m. and end up in Pomona when I was aiming for Santa Monica rather than acknowledge that I had gotten on the freeway heading east instead of west (“Of course I know where I’m going, damn it – the Pacific Ocean has to be around here somewhere. It’s a big blue thing, right?”).

I hate the kind of movies commonly known as “chick flicks” although I allow myself to be dragged grousing and muttering to see stories so heartwarming that my shirt starts to smoulder, usually involving a love story set inside a clan of charming eccentrics. I do not, however, shanghai my spouse into theaters showing movies in which the absence of a plot is more than compensated for by the spectacular detonation of fleets of automobiles for no rational reason, because I know that although she won’t enjoy it she’ll do a much better job of appearing to tolerate it than I do at her movies, and I hate being humored.

I would be willing to compromise if Hollywood would only try to find a middle ground, say something along the lines of “When Harry Met Sally and Kate and Leopold and Jackie Chan at My Big Fat Greek Monsoon Wedding in The Big Easy and They All Decided to Chase Each Other in Really Fast Cars and Maybe Blow Up Some Buildings and Stuff.” You know, movies the whole family could enjoy.

I don’t know whether it’s the guy part or the me part, but I think my wife shouldn’t be bummed out by the fact that Rob Lowe is leaving “The West Wing” this season – I mean, who cares? It’s only entertainment. I on the other hand have no plans to get over the sixth game of the World Series any time in this decade.

We went to Santana Row last weekend at my suggestion, in response to which my wife was thrilled. Of course it didn’t go well. My reason for going was to just see the lay of the land, as it were – the architecture, the grand plan, the reason why so many people have raved about it’s uniqueness. My wife took the very different view that “architecture” is just another word for “stores” and she had to meander through the insides to thoughtfully examine the goods while I waited impatiently outside observing the facades. Yet despite a lengthy perusal of a great many things in numerous establishments she had no trouble refraining from a single purchase, whereas I entered only two or three stores and in each I immediately saw something I wanted to buy even though I had no real need for the item.

What she calls “window shopping for fun and relaxation” I call “abject failure to purchase anything.” It’s probably a guy thing, and as everybody knows, we’re idiots. And that’s on our good days.

Robert Mitchell practices law in Morgan Hill. His column has appeared in The Dispatch for more than 20 years. It’s published every Tuesday.